Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd
Summary Descendant of Proto Csillan. Basically Csilla's equivalent of PIE. Unlike PCS, PČN was actually reconstructed. In certain places I'll use blue writing to highlight etymology information that couldn't be reconstructed yet is known to me 'cuz I made the lang :P Phonology Consonants OVowels As can be inferred from the graph above, all vowel qualities distinguished length and some nasality. Though all vowel qualities are rather uncertain, the greatest debate surrounds the roundedness of the vowel , which does not seem to show any partiality to either rounded or unrounded in its descendants. Two pieces of evidence, obtained via internal reconstruction, seem to support either sides of the debate- on one hand, 's morphological alternation with suggests that it was unrounded, whereas it's role as the product of umlaut for hints to a rounded quality. However, it should be taken into consideration that the product of an umlauted , which is indisputably rounded, is , which is indisputably ''un''rounded. Regardless, the most common consensus is that the vowel had various rounded and unrounded variants in specific phonetic, historical, situational and geographic contexts, which were stabilized by the various daughter languages. Thus, the preference over the grapheme for this phoneme which itself is historically ambiguous to a rounded or unrounded vowel. The stress was regularly placed on the second vowel of the root, unless that vowel was short and the following vowel was long (vowels lengthened via nasalization or other morphophonemics that were originally short do not affect this rule.) Phonotactics Legal Onsets: C, +fricative+plosive, Cj, +obstruent-homorganic Legal Nuclei: any vowel of any quality or length- though nasal vowels cannot occur before a complex coda (2+ consonants) Legal Codas: -nasal*, wC, +fricative+plosive, +fricative+fricative and of course nothing. Codas can occasionally contain up to three obstruents, particularly in verbs in the middle voice. Legal Middle Clusters: any coda + onset, unless it breaks the following rules: * fricatives cannot follow nasals * the only plosive + plosive combinations allowed are geminates and those beginning with a velar, otherwise the initial plosive spirantizes: /p t b d/ > /f þ v đ/ * chains of three or more plosives or fricatives are illegal (ie *aktti is illegal, but aksti, aktsi, akþti, aktþi, ahtti, etc, likewise with *ahssi) Any combination of obstruents must agree in voice: if a cluster is created that does not agree in voice, the second obstruent determines the voice for the whole cluster Morphophonemics Vowels underwent many shifts under certain conditions, with varying regularity: * Vowels raise before r, w, n and m in closed syllables (-r also makes the vowel long if it isn't) /y e æ a o/ > /i y e æ u/ -highly regular in short vowels, less common in long vowels (particularly in declension & conjugation when one of these sounds is made to follow a long vowel). Also note u + w > ū. * Vowels of any length nasalize before n and m, after raising /æ e y i u/ > /ą ę ę į ų/, the only exceptions that can be found appear word-finally. This sometimes led to stem alternations, such as the noun kostę (sword) gen sing kesteni, nom pl kosteną, gen pl kestenæmi * Vowels lower in any other closed syllable /i y e æ u/ > /y e æ a o/, same regularity as first rule * Short vowels become long before the consonant at the end of a word * Umlaut triggered by when stressed, long or at the end of a word. This is the only umlaut that can be regularly reconstructed to PPČ, but many daughter languages innovated new umlauts. It affected all applicable short vowels before the . ** /a æ o u y/ > /æ e e y i/ There were also a few grammaticalized consonant shifts which are discussed in the grammar section. Grammar Nouns First Declension The first declension, also known as the thematic declension, contains entirely animate nouns ending in any short vowel except æ or u. It shows a great deal of variation depending on the root vowel, as well as a consonant shift to further mark the oblique plural cases. The consonant shifts are as follows: * p t k b d g > f þ h v đ ɣ * f v s z > þ đ þ đ * V(n m) > vowel + s * r > ɣ * sonorant/hiatus > sonorant/hiatus + s These shifts happen to the consonant right before the root vowel and they occur in every plural case except the nominative. I'll add some examples of declined nouns when I feel like it :þ There are also some nouns belonging to this with a nominative singular ending in -o, -e or a consonant. These decline for the most part normally (nouns ending in a consonant act like an -i stem in all cases other than the nominative singular and plural, which are both null) except instead of a consonant shift the plural is marked in all cases (including the nominative) by the infix -am- (the disappears when the stem ends with an -o or -e.) Thus the plural of gven (light) is gvenam and tjeko (boar) is tjekom. Yet another class of strangely declined nouns include those with a nominative singular ending with -āh, -ōh, and -ēh. They decline like regular -a, -o and -e stems but form plurals with the infix -v, appended to the nominative singular w/out the -h (and associated lengthening), thus the nom plural of kamōh is kamov, gen pl kæmevi (i-stem endings are used in the plural Second Declension The second declension, also known as the athematic declension, contains entirely inanimate nouns ending with the consonant -þ. The -þ can follow any vowel, but it is overwhelmingly tends to follow æ in the nom sing and e in all other cases (the alternation being the product of regular sound rules); this is so ubiquitous because the inanimate gender originally derives from the abstract/collective suffix -æþ, other vowels in the endings are the result of borrowing. The t/d alternation is an unexplained aberration (it comes from an ancient consonant gradation that was only preserved in this suffix). Most Čeuň languages eliminate it in some way or another. Articles The only article reconstructable for Proto Čeuň is the definite article- or perhaps two definite articles, one for the animate gender and one for the inanimate. The article seemed to have been able to be cliticized and prefixed to the noun it modifies, reduced to s-, h(t)-, or f-. This seemed to cause consonant mutations depending on the initial consonant of the noun, but the individual dialect groups do not seem to agree, therefore the language must not have settled on a stable system. The article could also be used as a personal pronoun (it was likely not cliticized in this usage.) Adjectives Verbs The above endings are added to the appropriate stem of a verb (each tense has a unique stem, given in a verb's principle parts.) Only the active voice features distinct endings for each tense. Note that the (j) in the imperfect active endings serves to prevent hiatus if the imperfect stem ends in a vowel, likewise the parenthetical vowels in the passive endings are present when added to a principle part ending with a consonant. For the passive second person plural, the (w) prevents hiatus while the (j) appears only after a consonant. The middle system has no inherent epenthetic vowels, the consonant cluster simply tries to adapt to be pronounceable and legal (zrēd + ts > zrēþts or zrēts, zrēd + ks > zrēþks), but if this is impossible (ie vemak + ks) an epenthetic is inserted (vemkyks). In some languages, the became standard when the stem ends in an obstruent. First Principle Part The first principle part is usually the base root of the verb + the infinitive ending -kū. Exceptions to this include impersonal verbs (such as , where the first principle part is the present impersonal, and verbs were the base root is aoristic in nature and the present is formed via derivation (usually the inchoative suffix -đē), such as enwæþk (I knew) pres act inf enweđēmū. The first principle part is the source of all finite present forms of the verb, both active and mediopassive infinitives (the mediopassive is the active with the prefix kyz-) and both active and mediopassive participles of all tenses (note that the participle tenses differ from the finite verb tenses.) Second Principle Part The second principle part gives the finite imperfect forms for all voices. In some archaic verbs it is formed via reduplication (ie riakū (to live) > reriajēk (I was living), wokū (to go), wawojēk (I was going)). The majority of all transitive verbs feature the prefix at- (tokū (to say) > attojēk (I was saying), unless their base form is aorist, in which they use that same stem for the imperfect (enwæþk (I knew) > enwejēk (I was knowing/used to know). Intransitive verbs usually keep the same stem as the present for the imperfect system, since they typically lack passive or middle forms that would be confused by lack of an explicit marking. Third Principle Part The third principle part gives the finite aorist forms for all voices. In verbs that feature reduplication, the third principle part is formed by lengthening the stem vowel (riakū (to live) > riāþk (I lived), wokū (to go) > wōþk (I went)). In most other verbs, it's formed with the suffix -se added to the root stem (tokū (to say) > tosæþk (I said)). This occasionally eats the last vowel before the infinitive (anekū (to The most common exception to this rule, naturally, is aorist-root verbs, which lack any explicit morpheme for the aorist tense. Some verbs, though, form the 3rd pp via the prefix ki- (this usually appears in semantically passive verbs, such as shenokū (to sleep) kishenokū (I slept), but not all; dvatykū (to sit) > dvatseþk (I sat). Syntax Lexicon Example text Category:Proto Languages Category:Proto-languages